Published in the Valley Citizen, June 24, 2009

Teton Ranch

a model steward

North end hay and barley producer works to enhance habitat

By Hope Strong

It has been said that whiskey’s for drinkin’ and water’s for fightin’, but owners of a 1,600 acre ranch in Teton Valley’s north end are working to diffuse the tension that has historically existed as a result of different water uses while also establishing a model for stewardship in the area.Boyd and Jill Smith, who own the Teton Ranch near South Leigh, have taken significant steps to ensure their ground will be able to sustain a healthy population of birds, mammals and fish while also producing nearly 800 acres of barley and alfalfa each year. In order to help achieve this balance, the Smiths have hired a local consulting group to help quantify the water that is coming out of the Wyoming hills. With this information, they hope to improve habitat for the native species that exists in the riparian corridor.“Teton Ranch has taken the initiative to get through the classic western struggle between agriculture and fish,” said Ryan Colyer, fish biologist and fluvial geomorphologist with Biota Research and Consulting, Inc. This group was hired to help the Smiths with the juggling act that has had Westerners butting heads for generations. “They contacted us to help wade through these issues.”Since the spring of 2008, Biota has been working with Rohn McKee, a man hired by the Smiths to promote the vision of restoring Teton Ranch to the condition that existed prior to any agriculture.“We’re looking at every gallon of water differently in an effort to promote a successful spawn of Yellowstone Cutthroat every year,” McKee said. “It would be wonderful if all property owners would follow suit. The Smiths are keenly interested in a balanced ecological system, and Teton Ranch is an example of the possibilities.”Biota and McKee have teamed on projects before, including the reclamation of a spring creek in Jackson that was damaged by decades of livestock. Located just upstream from the confluence of the Gros Ventre River with the Snake River, Three Channels Spring Creek now produces a healthy trout population after Biota provided the expertise for aquatic habitat restoration and wild trout population enhancement, and McKee provided the landscaping plan. It is now a tributary that serves as spawning grounds for hundreds of natives, producing millions of juvenile fish each year.“We’ve got the same principles at work here,” McKee said of Teton Ranch. “The land has been abused for years, but it’s not so far gone that we can’t make significant progress.”The ultimate goal at Teton Ranch is the creation of a preserve for all wildlife through maintenance and improvement of habitat while simultaneously farming the acreage that the property’s water rights can sustain. To that end, Biota’s fi rst task was to go upstream of the ranch and determine how much water was fl owing out of the Teton Range. With a water right that dates around the 1900’s, fl ow from South Leigh Creek would be the determining factor for many aspects of the ranch’s ability to irrigate responsibly.Monitoring creek conditions for the U.S. Forest Service from 2000 to 2005 followed by a year of tributary assessment for Friends of the Teton River, Colyer took almost a decade of experience up North and South Leigh Creeks to help determine what sort of water budgeting could be done on Teton Ranch.“To my knowledge, no one knows how much water is in these systems,” Colyer said. “Some may have an idea of what is there, but no one has actually measured the surface water.”Once the volume of water was quantified, the distribution question could be tackled. In order to gather the most accurate data, Colyer has installed a number of AquaRods, computerized staff gauges that record creek levels every 15 minutes and store that information until it can be downloaded and processed.“There’s no guesswork here,” Colyer said. “And once we know how much water is coming down, we can have a better idea of how to distribute that water in order to sustain ranch operations while simultaneously satisfying the needs of wildlife and habitat.”Teton Ranch holds a permit through the Idaho Department of Water Resources to store 20 million gallons in a reservoir on the property, which equals one day’s worth of irrigation for the ranch’s entire 1,600 acres, according to McKee. While that reservoir and the Kilpack Canal diversion are managed as aesthetic features that ultimately satisfy irrigation needs for the ranch, there are approximately 8,000 linear feet within South Leigh Creek that the Smiths are dedicated to restoring to benefit wildlife. As a means to better understand the stream flow in and around Teton Ranch, Colyer has installed AquaRods in an effort to precisely quantify instream flows and diversion withdrawals. That data is gathered and plotted on a chart to help track the water flows that are essential to the survival and proliferation of native trout.“There is always a conflict between water users,” McKee said. “We’re not being critical of how anyone else manages their land or their water, but we want to serve as a model for the region, encouraging others to do this.”To the ultimate end of protecting the Yellowstone Cutthroat population in South Leigh Creek, the Smiths have worked with Friends of the Teton River to help install a fish screen on Hog Canal, located just south of South Leigh Creek. In addition to that effort, the Smiths took the initiative “To my knowledge, no one knows how much water is in these systems,” Colyer said. “Some may have an idea of what is there, but no one has actually measured the surface water.” Once the volume of water was quantified, the distribution question could to install their own rotating drum screen on the Kilpack canal that feeds their ranch’s reservoir as part of the whole water delivery system servicing the agricultural infrastructure.“All this has been done in an effort to promote good stewardship of the land,” McKee said. “Nothing’s been done in a hurry. Restoration and preservation has dictated all the decisions we’ve made. This project will sustain itself for a long, long time.”According to data collected by Colyer in a 2005 Tributary Trout Population Assessment, South Leigh Creek is one of only four tributaries to the Teton River that has maintained a native Yellowstone Cutthroat trout population that has not yet been degraded by the invasion of Eastern Brook Trout. Along with Darby, Badger and Bitch Creek, South Leigh’s headwaters hold hope for the native species.“The best alternative is to improve the quality and quantity of habitat in these streams if we want to bolster the population,” Colyer said. “South Leigh is home to one of the most important populations of Cutthroat in Teton Basin.”And while the Smiths were aggressive in taking action to protect the fishery near their ranch, Colyer acknowledged that not every landowner has the wherewithal to put toward such an extensive project. As a technical service provider for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Colyer said Biota is qualified to provide the technical expertise necessary in securing federal grants for enhancement and restoration projects like the one on Teton Ranch.With a dedicated team of wetland scientists, fish biologists and terrestrial ecologists, Biota is in the business of providing cutting edge methodologies and expertise to accomplish restoration and enhancement objectives in the local area. With Biota’s guidance, Teton Ranch is hopefully one of many to forge a new path of stewardship in the region.